Not on the belly in pregnancy.
大橫 Daheng
“Great Horizontal” · SP15
Foot Taiyin · 15 of 21 · crossing-point
Where. Level with the navel, straight down from the nipple.
For. Constipation, loose stools, a rumbling belly.
Press. Gentle finger pads, slow circles, one minute each side.
Caution. Not on the belly in pregnancy.
大橫，在腹哀下三寸，直臍傍按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Daheng Sits on the Middle Abdomen
On the middle of the abdomen, level with the deepest point of the navel, Daheng occupies the address the dataset records: four cun lateral to the centre of the umbilicus. A cun is the traditional measuring unit of Chinese point-location — proportional lengths taken from the person being examined rather than read off a ruler. Four cun works out, for most bodies, to roughly the width of your own thumb measured four times, which sets this point noticeably farther from the central line than most stations on the belly wall — nearly half-way out toward the soft curve of the flank. The essential discipline is the horizontal one: the point shares the exact height of the navel’s centre, neither climbing toward the rib arch nor sinking toward the hip bones.
What the fingertips meet there is the forgiving architecture of the belly wall. At this outward position many bodies find the stride has carried them to, or just past, the outer curve where the vertical strap of the abdominal muscle eases into softer flank tissue — a transition you can feel as the firm ridge beneath the fingers quietly gives way to give. Skin and padding yield under patient pressure before any deeper resistance registers, and nothing delicate announces itself near the surface. As with every abdominal point, the real hazard is not anatomy but enthusiasm: ordinary, comfortable ground invites heavy hands, and the belly answers gentleness far better than determination. Self-care here should feel like settling into a cushion, not testing a wall.
The neighbours confirm the address. A short step down the same vertical line lies Fujie (SP14), which the dataset places one-and-a-third cun below Daheng; a longer climb up the same line brings you to Fu’ai (SP16), level with three cun above the navel. On the horizontal itself, the stomach channel’s Tianshu (ST25) stands halfway between the central line and this point, at two cun — so Daheng doubles that familiar stride. Classical texts describe the spleen channel entering the belly low near the groin and climbing through the abdominal stretch toward the chest, gathering stations as it rises; Daheng belongs to that ascending column. Locating it therefore locates the line, and the line anchors the channel’s whole passage across the middle of the trunk.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Lie on your back with the knees slightly bent so the belly softens, or sit propped comfortably against pillows. Find the exact centre of your navel with a fingertip — most navels hold their deepest point at the middle. From there walk your fingers straight outward along the body’s side-to-side axis, holding them precisely level with the navel’s centre, until you have crossed four thumb-widths. Because four is a long stride, measure it honestly: two widths, pause, two more. Press gently at the landing spot — a shallow, even softness in the muscle wall, neither bone nor rim, tells you the search has settled. Repeat the survey on the other side, because the point exists as a mirrored pair and each side deserves its own unhurried attention.
A few quiet confirmations help before any pressing begins. Compare sides with feather-light touch: many people notice a faint dull awareness at the true point and little sensation half a thumb away. Let a slow breath move beneath your palm — the belly rises gently on the inhale and settles on the exhale, and the spot travels with it. Rehearse your height once more: imagine a line running straight out sideways from the navel’s centre, and check that your finger rests upon it. If you have met the bony lower rim of the rib arch, you drifted upward; if your hand has slid onto the crest of the hip bone, you wandered outward or downward; return to the centre and begin again.
Two slips account for most misses. The first is letting the outward path tilt off the true horizontal — drifting uphill toward the ribs or downhill toward the pelvis without noticing; unsupervised hands love to leave the level. The second is misjudging the stride: four thumb-widths is a considerable distance, and people either undershoot, stopping while still on the firm strap of muscle, or overshoot, arriving pressed against the flank. Anchoring often dissolves both errors: back to the navel’s centre, square up the height, then step sideways in two honest pairs of thumb-widths. People who locate the point this way a few times usually grow a reliable inner map of it, after which the measuring becomes a formality rather than a survey.
Reading the Name: Great Horizontal
The name is drawn from plain geometry. Da 大 means great or large; heng 橫 means crosswise, lying athwart — the character even pictures a bar set across a frame. Together they read as the great horizontal: a name pointing at the widest crosswise band the trunk possesses, the level of the navel itself. Commentators have read the reference two ways, and both belong to one picture: the navel-level as the great horizontal line of the body’s middle, and beneath it the bowel’s own long transverse passage. Either way the name behaves like a small map legend — find the great horizontal, stand upon it, and step four cun outward.
The dataset files Daheng among the crossing-points — stations where channels meet rather than merely pass. Classical descriptions associate this stretch of the spleen channel’s climb with the yin wei vessel, the yin linking vessel: one of the eight extraordinary vessels, which the tradition pictures not as everyday rivers but as deep reservoirs that rise when the ordinary channels run low. A crossing-point therefore reads like a junction house on a trade route — traffic arrives from more than one direction, and what gathers there can be worked from either road. The company suits the office: in five-phase thinking the spleen is an earth organ governing transformation and transportation — receiving food, refining it, dispatching the proceeds around the body — and its abdominal window opens amid the very coils that perform that work.
Pinyin renders the name Dàhéng, with a falling fourth tone on da — the pitch drops decisively, like a verdict delivered — and a rising second tone on heng, which lifts from mid-range upward. The hanzi pair 大橫 is compact enough to memorise at a glance, and like many points named for geography — gates, valleys, pivots, horizontals — the metaphor performs real work: it tells you where to stand. A name fixed to the body’s broadest crosswise landmark spares the searcher any finer measuring than the navel already provides, which is why classical teachers favoured names of this kind. The vocabulary is ancient, but the instruction survives translation intact.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: abdominal pain, diarrhoea, constipation, borborygmus, dysentery, and limb cramps. Bowel complaints head the list, and the reasoning behind them is the channel’s own: in the traditional frame the spleen oversees transformation and transportation, the belly is where that work visibly happens, and a station on the channel’s abdominal course is exactly where classical practice reaches when flow stalls there. Pain around the navel was read as qi and blood failing to move freely; constipation and diarrhoea pull in opposite directions, yet the old records meet both at the same station — because the traditional reasoning addresses the place where movement is governed, not the direction in which it has failed.
Three entries deserve closer framing. Borborygmus is the tradition’s honest word for audible bowels — gurgles and rumbles rising from the coils, understood as qi and fluid churning where movement is uneven; it sat beside the pain and loose-stool entries on the same lists. Dysentery in the old records gathered what modern readers would recognise as bloody or mucous stools with cramping and urgency; symptoms of that kind today raise the possibility of infection and belong with medical assessment promptly, never with a self-care routine. And limb cramps look surprising on an abdominal point’s list until the doctrine appears: classical teaching assigns the spleen stewardship of the flesh and the limbs, holding that nourishment refined in the middle is dispatched outward to keep them supple — so when limbs grew heavy or cramped, the discussion returned to the spleen’s own territory.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered here for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and nothing in this guide replaces assessment by a qualified clinician — particularly for bowel complaints, where persistent symptoms deserve genuine medical attention. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence specific to any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition lightly, hold the safety rules firmly, and let a professional examine anything that will not settle.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
Once the point is located, arrange yourself: lying back or seated, abdomen unclenched, hands warmed. Curl your index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — never the tips — on the spot. Begin with simple contact for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than grinding against it. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched where possible to slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap hands and give the other side equal time, keeping the sessions symmetrical.
Timing and mood matter as much as technique here. Most people find it kindest to practice away from meals — not just after eating, and not on a hollow stomach either — because a busy gut resists attention. Pick a quiet corner over a screen, warm cold hands before they land, and treat the few minutes as a pause in the day rather than a chore. People who keep the habit usually tether it to something established — morning washing, an evening wind-down — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for. A minute daily beats ten minutes once a fortnight.
Treat the exercise as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Across weeks, notice what changes: perhaps the area feels less guarded, perhaps the middle simply feels less fraught while you press, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spend ninety seconds attending to your own waistline. Every outcome fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder, longer, or deeper to force a result, especially over a complaint that keeps returning. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness, or book the appointment you have been postponing.
Cautions and Safe Practice
Daheng sits among the calmer addresses on the map: the licensed dataset records no cautions for this point, and nothing about its outward, mid-belly position approaches the guarded territory found higher on the trunk or near bony hollows. That said, an empty caution field is a record, not an invitation. The belly wall rewards patience and punishes force with guarding — the muscles clench, pressure stops informing, and the next morning may grumble in protest. Self-care here stays strictly superficial: skin and outermost muscle, finger pads only, no tools or devices, no driving inward, and always short of any sensation that sharpens.
Set the practice aside whenever the abdomen is acutely unwell — nausea with active vomiting, cramping, or any sudden severe belly pain calls for medical assessment rather than massage. Pause during a feverish illness, and skip entirely over broken, irritated, or recently operated skin. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, and do not retry that day. Pregnant readers should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice; classical custom counselled special care around abdominal points during pregnancy besides, and that prudence travels well. Anyone living with a diagnosed digestive condition, or still recovering from abdominal surgery, should likewise wait for a practitioner’s clearance before beginning.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a pressure routine — for blood in the stool, a bowel habit that changes persistently without explanation, pain that worsens steadily, vomiting that does not settle, unexplained weight change alongside digestive trouble, or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent complaints belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the situation. The great-horizontal imagery is tidy, but the soundest gift Daheng offers most people is a calmer daily acquaintance with their own middle, tended kindly.
Daheng, the Great Horizontal, rides level with the centre of the navel, four thumb-widths out on either side of it. Classical practice reached for this point when the belly rumbled, ached, or lost its rhythm — griping pain, loose stool, or stool that would not move. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it safely.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Daheng without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the navel as the whole map. Find the exact centre of your navel, then step sideways four thumb-widths — two, pause, two more — holding perfectly level with that centre the entire way. The soft spot you reach, neither up toward the ribs nor down toward the hip bone, is the location the dataset records. Cun measurements encode the identical landmark sequence in proportional language.
- Is pressing Daheng myself actually safe?
- For healthy adults, gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care, and the licensed record notes no specific cautions for this point. Its outward, mid-belly position is forgiving country, provided contact stays superficial and painless. Respect the stop signals all the same: sharp pain, worsening discomfort, or an abdomen that feels actively unwell mean finish immediately — and if symptoms persist, seek advice.
- What did classical practice use Daheng for?
- The traditional record lists abdominal pain, diarrhoea, constipation, borborygmus, dysentery, and limb cramps. Classical texts describe it as a crossing-point, associated with the meeting of the spleen channel and the yin linking vessel, which is why complaints of the middle burner dominate its historic portfolio. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does an abdominal point carry limb cramps on its record?
- Because traditional physiology made the spleen the provider of flesh and limbs: nourishment refined in the middle was believed to be dispatched outward, keeping the limbs supple and strong. Within that frame, heavy or cramped limbs were not read only in the arms and legs — the discussion turned back to whether the middle was transforming and transporting well. It is a traditional mode of reasoning, recorded here to illuminate the old lists, not a modern medical explanation.
- Can acupressure at Daheng replace seeing a doctor about my bowels?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool, and bowel complaints deserve particular care precisely because serious conditions can wear mild faces: blood in the stool, a persistently changed bowel habit, steadily worsening pain, or unexplained weight change all need professional assessment promptly. Daily self-care and clinical medicine occupy different floors of the same building, and neither substitutes for the other.
Sources
- 01WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
- 02A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition, crossing-point theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for SP15 Daheng — location, actions, and caution record.
Last reviewed
牌記This leaf, for machines
Old books ended with a colophon saying who printed them. Every leaf here carries the same facts as structured data for agents and search, with no layout in the way.
- GET /en/points/sp15/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/sp15/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/sp15/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "SP15",
"name": {
"en": "Daheng",
"gloss": "Great Horizontal",
"zh-Hant": "大橫",
"zh-Hans": "大横"
},
"channel": {
"id": "SP",
"order": 15,
"of": 21
},
"location": {
"text": "Level with the navel, straight down from the nipple."
},
"for": [
"constipation",
"loose stools",
"a rumbling belly"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle finger pads, slow circles, one minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"Not on the belly in pregnancy."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/sp15",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}